Part of a bridge under construction collapsed in southern Vietnam today, killing up to 60 workers and leaving scores injured and missing.
State-run Vietnam TV showed footage of damage to the collapsed concrete and steel structure being built to link Can Tho City and Vinh Long province over the heavily used Hau river.
Police said there were about 100 workers directly under the section of the bridge where scaffolding collapsed at the start of a shift. About 150 workers - most of them Vietnamese - were on the bridge surface.
A contractor with China State Construction Engineering Corp, one of the firms involved in building the bridge in the Mekong Delta, said 60 people were dead. At least 150 people are being treated in hospital for injuries.
A police official in Vinh Long said he saw 36 bodies. "They are using machinery to cut and lift the concrete," the police official said. "It is very difficult to reach the bodies and there is also danger of further collapse."
The cause of the collapse on part of the 2.75 kilometre-long bridge was not immediately known, but Vietnam TV reported that rains might have weakened the foundations.
Japanese companies started building the bridge in 2004 with Japan government aid of $300 million. It was to be finished next year.
The Hau river is one of the nine tributaries of the Mekong river.